


All Time Low

by Spacegaywritings



Series: Bad Therapists have a special Place in Hell [3]
Category: Cartoon Therapy (Web Series), Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Depression, Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Mental Health Issues, Mentions of Sex, Repression, Suicidal Thoughts, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, bad Memory, bad therapists, depression being seen as lazy, drastic weight loss, feelings of hopelessness/worthlessness, implied suicide contemplation/plan, invalidating mental illness, mentions of pretence, no perspective, self-deprecation, shitty Emile lmao, someone revoke the dude’s license lmao, u Emile, u!Emile - Freeform, worried doctors, worried family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:08:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26957851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spacegaywritings/pseuds/Spacegaywritings
Summary: Patton describes depressive episodes and being unable to live life. The therapist tells him it is okay and normal to feel sad and to stop being a wussy when Patton tells him life does not feel worth living at the moment.
Series: Bad Therapists have a special Place in Hell [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1940389
Kudos: 11





	All Time Low

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: writing based on subjective experiences based on therapy, mental health issues and (LOCAL) stigmas. You might have better/worse/different experiences with your struggles and how they were perceived and treated. Your culture or surroundings might have different bias. This is for venting and does not objectively apply to everyone’s experience of their mental illness or struggles.

Dull eyes took in the white walls framing the therapist’s office. Patton took in the sight before him. It felt as boring as life, as uneventful and tasteless.  
Looking at these walls made him feel as if his state had gotten much worse. If it had not been for his general practitioner to send him over and for his daily life to become so unbearable to him, he would have stayed at home and just not have gotten up to this appointment. His family was being persistent. He did not think it was that important. He just wanted to sit it out in his bed and not do anything for a little bit longer.

“Hello there, Patton!”

A friendly face rushed in. It was just as blank as the walls to him. He tried to smile back at the person who beamed so nicely at him.  
His lips barely moved. He could taste the bitter bile of guilt taking up the back of his throat.

“Hello.”

The therapist narrowed his eyes.

“Oh, well, I have heard more cheery responses today. This is the first time we meet and you show up like this? A little disappointing~”

The singsang voice made Patton want to crawl back under his bed’s quilt. It smelled bad but only if he left his bed for long enough to realise the smell again. He had become dull to it like to anything else in life.  
Might as well live in a stinky bed and a stinky life.  
It was not like these words, as cheery as they sounded, could lift him up. They only pushed him deeper into the darkest corners of his own feelings.

“I- I’m sorry.”

Patton’s words were slow and he curled deeper into his big big hoodie. He had parked his greasy hair underneath the actual hoodie part of his clothing and he had messily put on some jogging pants. The pant’s legs were lanky around his own legs, even his thighs. They looked like he had taken his older brother’s pants to be his own and he had yet to “grow into it”.  
It was at least comfortable enough for his body to drown in the gown and hide his pathetic existence away. 

Not that this really mattered anyway.

“Oh, there there. It will be okay. I just made a little joke! You really are not up for the smiley treatment today, huh? Well, I am your therapist - Doctor Emile Picani! The reception said you are all good to go and I checked in your insurance card, too. Now, would you be so free to tell me what brought you here today?”

The adolescent shrugged his shoulders.  
He was not worth the therapist’s time anyway. His thoughts were a soup made of dirt and grass and it revolved only about how he was stupid and selfish for going to the appointment made for him. He should have resisted harder and let someone in need have this session.

Still, a little bit of fire in him pushed him onto the couch as if to lay down or at least crawl as far away from the sunlight and the big, observant eyes of this world.

“I, uh.. my family thinks I need help”, he slowly explained. Emile was tempted to yawn. Even a turtle would be faster at walking than Patton was at speaking. This was going to be a long session, a stretching act like pulling at sweet, juicy gum.  
“My doctor said I am, uh, losing weight. My family says I don’t have a perspective.”

His hands found their way to a little piece of crumbled paper in the front pocket of his hoodie. He slowly pulled it out, adjusting his round glasses.

“They wrote it down. Uh- I lost weight, don’t remember things and lose focus or something.. um, something about not doing anything, being really slow and uh.. they just said weird.”

Patton shrugged, sniffling a bit.  
He tried not to cry at the note but a part of him had become apathetic enough for him to not break into tears. The world was better off without him anyway. He just wanted to go back and sleep or pretend to sleep in his little room.  
Not interact with people, not be with anyone and disappoint them with his terribly low performance in life. His existence was enough failure already.

“Uhu.. they said you are being “weird”? Well, aren’t we all a bit weird sometimes! Are you dieting at the moment, perhaps increased the amount or intensity of exercise you are doing?”

The younger male shook his head.

“You did lose a lot of weight, though?”

A nod, this time.  
The therapist hummed in thought, scribbling onto his clipboard.

“Now, how have you been feeling the last days?”

The client pulled his thin shoulders up in a shrug, his face slightly distorting into a weird expression. His nose seemed to turn upwards.

“Uh, I would say... not so .. great?”

Another shrug fell from his shoulders as he sighed.

“I just feel.. nothing, I guess. Or bad. Maybe.”

More shrugs were countered by Emile’s rapid nods.

“Alright. Have you been doing things these days? Did anything happen in your life? Maybe a breakup, maybe a loss in your family.”

Patton hugged himself, gently blowing through his heavy hair strands. The grease kept it down. The strands fell into his sight and covered his eyes but moving his hands seemed out of the question. He tried to blow it off again but the strands fell right into his eyes.  
Well, he deserved that, probably. Not that fixing his hair was worth the effort.

His head shook itself.

“No. Graduated.. um.. “, he trailed off, his voice fading into hums.

Emile snapped his fingers to gain Patton’s attention.

“You graduated? Congratulations! Me too.”

Shoulders rose, barely as much as his chest rose with every breath he took.

“I guess... You made it to a phD, though. I just hang in my room..”

His lips twitched for a moment. Patton looked onto the floor. Always has been looking at the floor. He spared Picani the miserable sight of his whole face being exposed to him. Or even his soulless eyes. Oh no, he should spare anyone his own presence.

“Well, you can work on that! So, you are feeling bad a lot, don’t do anything and this has been ever since your graduation?”

This time, his shoulders as much as flexed as if to mimic the shrugs he did not have the energy to repeat once more.

“I don’t really.. no.. I guess graduation was my peak.”

The therapist nodded with the energy Patton lacked.  
He hoped the other would gain something from this session. Maybe money. Yes, the insurance paid money for this.

“Oh, this looks pretty direct. You have issues with sadness”, he revealed, his emphasis on the sad part reminding Patton of puppets. Oh, he wished he was a child again. Full of life and enjoying simple puppet shows on TV.  
“But! Sadness can be helped! You only have to do things again!”

Emile let his pen drop onto the clipboard and put his hands up, palms stretched out to face Patton.

“Things..?”

The therapist nodded, his tone alive, his body rising as he started pacing back and forth like a mad scientist discussing his ultimate invention. It was a great plan, a perfect plan! It had to be revealed because it was! Perfect! Perfect! Perfect! He was such a genius with his phD and his comfortable desk job!

“Yes!!!”, the doctor practically screamed back at him, “you have to make plans and structure your life and go out there again! Stop being so lazy and boring! You need to go out and stop sulking in the corner like a kicked dog! Nobody wants that!”

The dull blue eyes filled with water. They looked like wet buttons more than actual human orbs.

“I... nobody wants me?”

He felt like a child terribly reprimanded by their parents.

“Nobody! I promise. You are being a real party pooper but you can just change and be nice again, so people will stop feeling bad for you. You are blowing all of your feelings waaaay out for proportion!”

Emile’s hands moved to illustrate an invisible line that stretched the more his arms moved apart.

“Everyone feels a little sad sometimes. It is normal! It is important to recognise your feelings and move on. See the sadness? Call it sadness and move on. Work through it. If you have time to be sad, you have time to literally be doing anything else. Mental illness is a matter of having too much time. It is a luxury and you cannot afford this. Your family has been waiting for you to take flight like a bird! But you are staying at home, neither working or studying nor looking into any other things to do. Do you even do chores?”

Patton’s eyes were drowning in tears. His throat was tight and suffocating Patton in upcoming cries that were stuck enough for him to choke on his own sadness. His ears were covered by an overwhelming sound of static, muffling the sounds of his environment.  
He was always on static.  
This time, his heart seemed to stop and the tears burned pain into his face. The streaks they left were like whiplashes to his heart and he could feel himself barely able to breath.

Emile smiled, nodding.

“You are doing great, Patty! Really great! Feel the feelings, listen to your heart, listen to your pain and your thoughts - amplify it!”

He squatted before the crying creature like a motivational coach in gyms. His yelling made Patton cry harder as Emile instructed him to listen to his thoughts dragging him through the mud and sing songs of suicide and happy pills.

“Now stop.”

Patton looked up at him, petrified.  
The therapist put his fingers close to his thumb as if to squeeze Patton’s will to live between them. Slowly, painfully so, the fingers inched closer until they met.  
By then, his tears were gone and dried. The shock and messy anticipation too intense for him to wail further in his miserable feelings and adverse state.

“I want you to go out and put on some makeup if you want to, if you need to. Go and hook up with someone and feel like a person. Go out with friends, get drunk and take anything you can to make yourself happy. Go out there and make me happy, make yourself happy! You don’t need therapy to get over a little bit of heartbreak over graduating.”

He approached Patton, turning to make space for him. His movements asked Patton to get up but he felt too wonky and wobbly to even twitch or blink. Breathing was too much.  
The therapist helped him up. It was a blur. He was patted on the back and internally, he wanted to cry at how ironic it was that he was Patton and got pats on the back.

Doctor Picani lead him to the door, spouting more nonsense about “going out more” being the cure to his issues.

He has never felt worse.  
Patton slowly retreated to his family’s car and curled up. When he was asked how it went, he did not know how to respond and bit his tongue.

“You cried? I hope you got it all out, then. I am sure that helped a lot but I can be in contact with them if you need me to. Anyway, let’s go have some lunch.”

It was the last things Patton heard.

**Author's Note:**

> End Note: This is not how a therapist should treat you. If someone treats you or your issues like that, please make sure you leave immediately and report this. A real therapist will validate your concerns and try to redirect your thoughts. If you have mental health issues, please reach out for help. Depression and sadness can have several different causes. If you are worried about similar issues as the character depicted in the story, please try to keep a journal or a mood tracker to help yourself. It makes sense to contact a GP and work with a therapist and even psychiatrist if needed.  
> Please take care of yourself and don’t anyone call you lazy for having mental health struggles. Do not listen to depression or anxiety talking you down.


End file.
